St John Paul II College reached a significant milestone this week as we celebrated the completion of Year 10 for our foundation year group.

On Wednesday evening we celebrated an inspiring Mass together with students and their families, presented each student with their Year 10 Certificate and recognised the effort and academic achievement for Semester 2.  We presented two inaugural perpetual awards. The first was the Gungahlin Rotary Club, St John Paul II College Justice Peace and Courage Award for Citizenship, Leadership and Community Service.  This was won by Thomas Mugridge.  The second was the Australian Catholic University Award for Achievement through the application of a growth mindset.  This was won by Chelsea Guillot.

We warmly congratulate these two students.

Mrs Rey in her address to the students and their families highlighted the great debt we owe this very special group of Year 10 students:  they have been great role models to the rest of the school and set the tone both academically and behaviourally in terms of our high expectations of students. 

She ended her remarks with the following:

“Congratulations and thank you.  I am very proud of each and every one of you.  Those of you who are undertaking the next stage of your journey elsewhere, we wish you every success and every blessing.  For the vast majority of you who are continuing with us, we are really looking forward to our continuing journey together.  It will be wonderful walking with you into adulthood.”

After the official ceremonies, families and staff members mingled on the terrace enjoying some delicious and sophisticated refreshments prepared by our students and staff.  It was followed by the Year 10 Social where our Year 10 students enjoyed each other’s company in a night of fun and dancing.

Friday 9th December - Term 4 Ends

Learning is essentially a matter of creating meaning from the real activities of daily living.  By embedding subject matter in the ongoing experiences of the learners and by creating opportunities for learners to live subject matter in the context of real-world challenges, knowledge is acquired and learning transfers from the classroom to the realm of practice.
Stein, D., (1998).

In the past week, Year 8 Maths classes have been completing a variety of lessons and activities related to PIXAR animation.  Khan Academy and PIXAR got together to develop lessons and activities for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students called “Pixar in a Box”.

Some examples of lessons and activities the students completed included;

• smooth surfaces are created for Pixar’s characters using the mathematics of subdivision and weighted averages.

• how realistic blades of grass are modeled using parabolic arcs.

• how characters are brought to life with geometric transformations.

• how the physics of light and lenses are used to create virtual cameras.

• And how organic looking patterns are created using randomness.

It was amazing to walk around the room and observe students completely engaged in these tasks, discovering the topic of calculus, learning to animate the PIXAR ball and persevering with difficult tasks. It is a good reminder that young adults learn and perform better when they are engaged with tasks that are not only real world but also relevant to their own world.

You can check out these tasks and lessons with the link below and Khan academy is a free resource for all subjects.

https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/pixar/start/introduction/a/users-guide

We will be running a modified program in Week 9.

Monday and Tuesday - lessons will be as normal.

On Tuesday afternoon student’s will complete a Reflection on Semester 2 and will also clean out their lockers and take all their equipment home. We are asking that no iPads are brought to school on Friday. Year 7 students will not require iPads on Thursday. All locks need to be removed from lockers by Wednesday afternoon.

Students will carry their bags with them for the rest of the week and only need bring their lunch and recess. Students may bring their iPads on Thursday but they do need to be aware that there is no safe place to store them and they will need to take extra care of them.

On Wednesday student’s will sign up for a variety of creative and sporting activities which they will rotate through.

We will be running a house competition on Thursday morning and in the afternoon we will hold our “JPC Has Talent” showcase, where any student who wishes to perform can nominate to participate in the showcase. This begins at 1.30pm and parents are most welcome to join us.

Our final day will begin with our Christmas liturgy in the Hall. As a school, we will walk to Yerrabi Pond for a celebratory picnic lunch. Students are asked to bring their lunch and recess on this day. There will be no Canteen facilities. Please ensure that your child has sensible walking shoes, a water bottle and hat as well as their lunch.

Given the number of activities students will be involved in they may wear their PE uniform for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Stephanie O’Meara
Assistant Principal

St John Paul II College is a registered Award Unit to deliver the Duke of Edinburgh program.

The Duke of Edinburgh program aims to engage teenagers and young adults in programs fostering participation and community engagement through planning their own group journeys, hiking or otherwise, whilst completing service (volunteering / community service), physical recreation (sport) and new skill development.

As a result of their hard work and organisation, our first Award recipient has been announced as of the end of 2016. A small information session for interested students is planned for the final week this year. For parents / guardians who are interested in their child’s participation in the Duke of Edinburgh program, a link is provided here for you to investigate the suitability of this program. Further to this, a parent information event will be held in early 2017.

http://www.dukeofed.com.au/

Last Friday, we recognised White Ribbon Day. Students participated in various activities in Houses and at lunch. On the day, JPC raised $389 to donate to White Ribbon Australia. This is an amazing effort for our first White Ribbon fundraiser day and demonstrates our students’ awareness of broader community issues and their commitment to making a difference. 

In House groups, each touch team was awarded with a participation certificate. These students volunteered to represent their House last Friday in the inaugural White Ribbon Charity Shield competition held at lunch. Additionally, the following students were presented with the weekly Respect Award:

Ferre:  Jordan Sarri, Year 7
Kennedy: Logan McMahon, Year 9
Maathai: Noel Crowther, Year 7
Vanier: Michael Woodman, Year 7
Van Thuan: Sharee Mudaliar, Year 9

These students have proven themselves to be respectful role models among their peers. Well done to these students who are more than worthy recipients of these awards!

The Canberra Girls’ Programming Network runs free, hands-on programming workshops for girls in grades 4–12. Girls are introduced to a range of topics such as cryptology and games and code their own programs using the Python programming language. No coding experience is necessary!

Events are run several times a year by local women studying or working in IT in industry, academia and government. So whether you’re a coding guru, or just a beginner, come along to one of our workshops and give programming a go!

Well that is exactly what Alison Fisher did. Alison completed the Markov line course (the coding behind predictive text on iPhones) and enjoyed learning the logic of coding and coding her own program (one that picked up the most commonly used words in a stanza of text) then created text based from this knowledge. She had a wonderful time and is keen to keep attending these courses.

If you have a similar passion as Alison, why don’t you give it a go. You can find out more information at the following website:

https://canberragpn.github.io/ 

Andrew Ganderton
IT Robotics and Programming Teacher

The Commonwealth Bank is running a “Start Smart Secondary program”, which offers a suite of workshops developed for students in Years 7 -11. Each workshop focuses on a different topic in depth and explores financial concepts such as, understanding the impact of financial choices, getting your first job as well as basic investment principles, savings goals and budgeting. On Monday, we welcomed Jirana, one of the workshop facilitators to JPC. Jirana ran five workshops for different groups of students. Our Year 9/10 Business and Economics classes participated in the “Smart Enterprise” workshop on how to generate ideas to start up a small business. The workshops were very practical and the students interacted well.

Daniela Ganderton

Students of French, from Years 8 and 9, enjoyed a little French Christmas cheer in their lessons this week. The Year 9 students, who have also focused on producing work using the past tense, wrote this short report to accompany some photos.

Lundi dernier nous avons fait des petites Bûches de Noël.

D’abord, Mme Kelly est arrivée dans la salle de classe avec un chariot plein d’ingrédients.

Il y avait des petits gâteaux au rouleaux, soit du chocolat, soit de la confiture. Il y avait aussi du glaçage au chocolat, du glaçage fondant, et du sucre glace. 

Nous avons utilisé des cuillères, des couteaux, une cuillère en bois, un grand bol, un tamis et des plateaux.

Pour commencer, nous avons étalé le glaçage au chocolat sur nos gâteaux. Il fallait le faire ressembler l’écorce d’un arbre.

Nous avons modelé le glaçage fondant en figures comme des champignons, des boules de neige et des bonhommes de neige.  Nous les avons peintes avec les colorants alimentaires (rouge et vert) et les pinceaux.

Enfin, nous avons saupoudré « la neige » (le sucre glace) sur les bûches.

Finalement, nous avons mangés nos bûches de Noël. C’était délicieux, mais trop sucré!

Les étudiants d’Année 9

Translation:

Last Monday, we made little Christmas log cakes.

First, Mrs Kelly arrived in the classroom with a trolley full of ingredients. There were little cake rolls, either chocolate or jam. There were also chocolate icing, fondant icing and icing sugar.

We used spoons, knives, a wooden spoon, a big bowl, a sieve and some platters.

To begin with, we spread the chocolate icing on our cakes. We had to make it look like the bark of a tree.

We moulded the fondant icing into figures like mushrooms, snowballs and snowmen. We painted them with food dye (red and green) and paintbrushes.

To finish, we sprinkled “snow” (the icing sugar) on our logs.

Finally, we ate our Christmas log cakes. They were delicious, but too sweet!

Year 9 students.

Sunday saw the beginning of Advent. Keeping with the traditional idea of Advent Calendars, JPC students have been challenged to give the gift of themselves in preparing for the Christmas season. This Advent To-Do Calendar also connects with the Jesse Tree in preparing the way for the coming of Jesus.

Following the structure of an advent calendar, students find the day, read the connected Jesse Tree scripture passage and open the card to see the challenge which connects the two. These challenges are simple acts like, smiling at every person passed, making a handmade ‘thank you’ card, praying with a family member, donating old toys to charity or giving thanks for the sunrise or sunset. By taking time to give ourselves to others or appreciate the gift of our environment, we are equipping ourselves spiritually as the new liturgical year begins.

What can we change about ourselves to make the world brighter this Christmas? There are many ways we can share our spirit, why not ask your child what acts they are undertaking this week?

Flute Lessons

"I have private flute lessons with my teacher Neille. I enjoy private flute lessons because it gives me time to practice and play my flute one on one with a teacher. This gives me time to specifically work on pieces of music I find difficult or want to work on. These lessons also make it easier to improve because the teacher can listen to you playing and figure out what you need to work on.

I love working with my teacher Neille because she is a very good teacher. I find these lessons productive but interesting and fun. I have learnt many new music pieces with the help of my teacher. I can bring new pieces I want to learn or band pieces that I'm having trouble with. My teacher also brings her own music pieces that suit what I'm learning, or are fun pieces to play."

Hannah Rothnie

Woodwind Lessons

"Extra-curricular music classes at JPC with Mrs Williams are some of the best parts of my school week. I am currently a member of the school band playing clarinet. I receive additional music lessons from Mrs Williams on Thursdays for half an hour. Ever since I started playing in Year 7, I have seen a huge improvement in my skills on the clarinet and I am very grateful for the time and effort Mrs Williams has given to help reach that level of improvement. I find the extra-curricular music program to be very helpful, rewarding, and enjoyable and I would strongly recommend more people learn an instrument and take up music lessons."

Finn Salisbury